Stories

SECTOR: Entertainment

CLIENT: Hearst, Esquire

WOW: Power of the human word

DATE: November 2017

Progressive US magazine Mother Jones recently reported that Artificial Intelligence (AI) experts are predicting we will have ‘full human-level AI’ by 2045. Artists? Surgeons? Writers? There’s an app, well, a robot for all that in less than 30 years.

However, when you read Kevin Sintumuang’s piece, ironically about driverless cars, there’s little hope for mid-millennium robots mastering the art of magazine writing.

His article on the new Mercedes S-Class is a paean to near-future tech and evokes its benefits with the passion and skill normally reserved for the Times Literary Supplement, rather than a humble car review.

Kevin’s work is indicative of inspired editorial direction at Esquire but also to a bold approach at publisher level, elevating native content above attention-grabbing social media calls to action or the ‘10 celebrity chefs you won’t believe what they cook like now’ clickbait strategies.

Mediacells reckons that even with superior petaflops, your above-average robot won’t ever be able to conclude a car review with:

Are we ready to give up our freedom to take the wheel in exchange for self-driving pleasure pods of the future?